


Gunpoint

by Wispie



Series: All The Things We Know And Feel [5]
Category: X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Charles Xavier Needs a Hug, Erik Lehnsherr has feelings apparently, M/M, Post-X-Men: Days of Future Past, Regret, Years Later, who knew
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:27:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27341197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wispie/pseuds/Wispie
Summary: It was a gun that made them and it was a gun that broke them. Charles and Erik, separated by time, space, and ethics, reflect on what brought them together and tore them apart.
Relationships: Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier
Series: All The Things We Know And Feel [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1981823
Kudos: 17





	Gunpoint

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt list: https://whumptober2020.tumblr.com/post/187356400823/october-approaches-and-so-does-whumptober-2019
> 
> No. 5: Gunpoint
> 
> Damn, this took longer than expected! Like I mentioned in prompt 3, it's really hard to write purely contemplative angst without much of a plot to it. Also, apparently, I can't write something like this without leaving it open-ended. I just... Erik, please, I beg of you, apologize to your husband. Maybe it's just that I personally believe Erik's really in the wrong (though neither of them are 100% right).

Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters was Charles’ great pride and joy. Once just one professor and a handful of mutants, it had now grown to a bustling campus full of students whose numbers were rising so fast it was hard to keep up. Word spread through the still mostly underground mutant community and legitimate applications poured in, flooding Charles’ desk with unkempt stacks. He’d resorted to purchasing an additional filing cabinet. And then two more. But more students meant a greater need for space and dorms. After much consideration, Charles was finally allowing Hank to repurpose Erik’s old room. 

For years, it’d been that one locked door on the second floor east wing that mostly served as a loose metaphor for trust. Any student— and most humans with a little gusto— could break in without a problem. But Charles made it abundantly clear to each and every one of them that  _ no one _ went in there. And so far, no one had. 

It was summer break. Those with accepting families were home and those without were mostly out of the house, enjoying the warm, sunny day. Charles felt it was very important to keep the mansion open year-round to anyone who needed it, so it would be impossible to clear out the room undisturbed. But at least this minimized the number of prying eyes, and ensured that they were of the more understanding kind. 

Hank was in one corner, parsing through Erik’s bookshelf. Well, it hadn’t really ever been Erik’s, the precious few months they’d had together had never really allowed for anything of permanence to settle in. They were all books from Charles’ library that had never found their way back.  _ Oh, so that’s where his favorite paperback copy of Frankenstein had gone _ . 

Charles was in the opposite corner, going through Erik’s personal possessions, or the few he had, anyways. Hank was being gracious by sticking to the clearly less meaningful objects— books, furniture, decorations— and letting him take his time. Charles closed one drawer, which had previously held files full of information on Shaw that had long since been rendered useless, and opened the next. He froze when glinting metal shone back at him. It was a gun, the one he’d held to Erik’s head at his vehement request. That day was probably the last time he’d seen it, the day he fully realized Erik’s potential. It was the first time Erik let him in unbidden, and even after all these years, Charles could count the number of times Erik had done that on one hand alone. This was the moment Charles realized Erik’s capacity for good. He saw so much genuine care and affection for mutantkind, he saw a spark, one that he would ultimately fail to kindle. He allowed himself to fall in love with Erik because he saw that goodness. He definitely would have fallen in love anyway, but Charles at least liked to maintain the belief that he had some semblance of control over his emotions. 

He felt an all-too-familiar pang of regret course through him for everything that was said and done that day on the beach. He shouldn’t have pleaded with Erik over the lives of faceless American and Soviet soldiers, he should have pleaded with Erik over the goodness in Erik himself. The last time he was in Erik’s head, before he killed Shaw, it had certainly been there. Smouldering, sputtering, a smothered spark dying out, but not dead yet. Except now… Even if Erik showed up in that very moment, without his helmet, Charles was fairly sure he wouldn’t even try to look in Erik’s mind. He was too terrified of what he’d find. He was almost completely sure that spark was gone, and he utterly dreaded the idea of finding nothing left in that beautiful mind except hatred and cold, calculating anger. He’d loved that mind once, he still did. He would always cling to the hope that he could change Erik, convince him to come home. Charles would never be able to stop himself from trying to bring Erik back, even if there was no possibility it would work, and that torturous existence was one he loathed to imagine. He’d rather never know if Erik could be changed or not than know for sure that he couldn’t. Even then, with the school and his students, Charles would have scarcely a thing to live for. Even though he hadn’t seen Erik in years, every beat of his heart and every breath he took was for him. He needed Erik, he needed to have hope for Erik. 

Charles reached down slowly to grab the gun, carefully placing it in an unmarked box containing Erik’s meager personal possessions. It occurred to him that Erik had never tried to come back for them, and he let himself wonder why for a moment before steeling himself and rifling through the rest of the drawer’s contents. 

\-- 

Erik sat alone in one of the empty rooms of the Brotherhood’s most recent hideout. It was late at night. A nearly full moon hung high in the sky, casting everything in a cool, blue glow. Erik was tired of running but he wasn’t tired of his cause. The endless cycle of plan, strike, be found, get hurt, move, plan, strike, be found, get hurt, and so on was making him weary, both physically and mentally. Charles would tell him this was proof that violent retaliation is unproductive, harmful, even, to the mutant cause. Erik would point out that they never attacked without good reason, that every strike was a response, not an initiation, and that the humans seemed all to eager to fight fire with fire. 

Erik sighed. He missed those arguments with Charles. He missed Charles. And once he began missing Charles, it wasn’t long before that feeling was replaced by deep, soul-crushing regret. It always happened, every time without fail. For Erik, Charles and sorrow were regrettably and inextricably linked. 

He reached into a small pocket in his coat and pulled out something small, metal, crumpled. It had once been a small cog, a vital component of a killing machine, but had done its duty and now broken, cracked, and twisted, would remain with Erik forever. It was a bullet. The very same one he’d expertly deflected into his friend’s back. His friend, is that what Charles had been? No, he’d been so much more. But that only made his actions worse. 

He hated how poetic it all was. He betrayed Charles— something Erik would never forgive himself for— and then turned around and shot him in the back. Their last conversation was burned into Erik’s brain, scalding him every time he recalled the memory.  _ She didn’t do this, Erik. You did.  _

Erik’s vision became wobbly and he realized that his eyes had filled with unshed tears. His regret turned inwards, he allowed it to fester into self-hatred, allowed it to wrap its dark tendrils around his mind and he succumbed to the loathing. Charles would never have stood for it, he always believed there was something good left in Erik, even going so far as to claim that he’d seen it in Erik’s mind. 

There was a time where he believed that what Charles saw was simply weakness, the small part of him that still feared Shaw and all he stood for. Now he believed it was his regret and remorse. He didn’t know if there was any true goodness left in him, or if there ever was any to begin with. 

Part of Erik wanted to push these thoughts from his mind, to forget as much of this as he could. Pain was something he knew how to handle, he could barely remember existing without pain and sorrow, but regret was something else entirely. However much he wanted to throw away that damned bullet, to push those wandering thoughts of Charles from his mind, he couldn’t. It only consumed him more and more as time went on. It wasn’t simply that he’d betrayed Charles’ trust, hurt him, and left him on the beach, it was that every day that went by without Charles by his side corroded at his very soul, and every moment he spent thinking that Charles may hate him for what he’d done reminded him that his betrayal was ongoing. 

It was becoming harder for Erik to agree with plans relying on excessive violence. He was shocked the other day when Raven reminded him that  _ he  _ was the one that taught her that a good offense was always the best defense. 

It almost went without saying that Erik was conflicted, he didn’t think it possible for there to be any good left in him, and yet his inner voice was beginning to sound increasingly like Charles. And thinking of Charles only sent him into a spiral of more pain and regret. 

So Erik held the bullet, let it float between his fingers, contemplating what it— what he— had done, and he considered. He did not hope yet, but a spark was still sputtering away in the depths of his mind. 


End file.
